Jim was raised in Kingston, Ontario. His mother died during his birth. The son of a doctor, he went to private school. From there he developed a wide variety of interests and vocations: His handsome appearance and tall figure earned him some modeling work, and walk-on bit parts in the early Canadian TV series "The Plouffe Family." He became a pilot, and once while crop dusting in a southern American state he had the misfortune to encounter an iced-up carburetor in his plane's engine. It quit while he was making a difficult turning maneuver and his plane crashed. He told me how he remembered seeing the farmer running to the crash site to help him out of the wreck, but was astonished to have the farmer stand there and yell at him for destroying five rows of strawberries. He sold real estate for a time, but since he didn't talk about that part of his life much I can only assume it did not leave much of an impression on him. He told me once that for a time he dabbled in rock climbing as a hobby.
I first met Jim at an anti gun-control meeting a local restaurant. Shortly after the Canadian government announced its intention to further regulate guns, Jim and a local businessman put an ad in the paper calling on concerned gun owners to attend an information meeting. They expected about 100 people to show up. That night, close to 400 people packed the place and the street out front.
Jim delivered a fiery oratory against the new law. Waving a copy of the Laissez Faire catalog, he explained how gun control was more than just a bad idea; it was a symptom of an out-of-control government. He then passed out copies of the catalog. At the end of the meeting he called on people to come forward to help organize resistance against the new law. Disappointingly (but typically), only 4 people out of 400 did. I was one of them.
From there, the Sporting Clubs of Niagara was formed--an organization he was instrumental in founding and [which] grew to encompass 3,000 area gun owners. His knowledge of parliamentary procedure, and his insistence that we adhere to it at all of our meetings, set a legacy of efficiency and decorum that continues to this day. His knowledge of the issues surrounding gun control was encyclopedic. His flair for remembering figures and quotes was astounding.
Although once ranked within the top 10 of all IPSC shooters in Canada, firearms were much more than sporting items for Jim. He recognized they were the badges of a free people, and that possessing them would always permit a citizenry to control their own political destiny.
Jim took life very seriously. He seemed to take the famous expression that "an unexamined life is a life not lived" to heart. Whether through letters to the editor, the Internet or in person, he reveled in philosophical discussions about life and politics. He became what one of his favorite authors termed a "Philosophical Detective," and as such, he spent a great deal of effort tracing current social trends to their ideological roots. Whether it was politics, current events, the arts, science, religion, or relationships, everything in or around his life was examined closely for message and agenda, then compared against his belief in freedom and self-determination.
As a strong advocate of liberty and self-government, Jim could be very uncompromising on matters of principle. During his tenure with the Board of Health he vigorously resisted the governmental trend towards automatically requesting and getting budgetary increases each year. He told me a story about how his staff had once requested a specific brand of new typewriter that was $200 more than the ones currently being used. Investigating further he found out that the model requested wasn't any better than the other, but was "desperately" required because it came in colors which matched the office decorations. His refusal to ask for or [to] spend more taxpayer's money than was absolutely necessary put him at odds with the bureaucratic establishment, and it eventually squeezed him out. Jim got the last laugh by mounting and winning a case based on wrongful dismissal.
It is not often in life that you get to meet a person who is always a gentleman, always thinking and always in good humor. Jim was like that.
I am very thankful to have known Jim Finley.
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